X6o THE AGE OF REASON
The condition of Rome and the Campagna was described
by Gibbon in 1787:
The clouds of barbarism were gradually dispelled; and the
peaceful authority of Martin the Fifth and his successors restored
the ornaments of the city as well as the order of the ecclesiastical
State. The improvements of Rome, since the fifteenth century,
have not been the spontaneous produce of freedom and industry.
The first and most natural root of a great city is the labour and
populousness of the adjacent country, which supplies the materials
of subsistence, of manufactures, and of foreign trade. But the
greater part of the Campagna of Rome is reduced to a dreary and
desolate wilderness; the overgrown estates of the princes and the
clergy are cultivated by the lazy hands of indigent and hopeless
vassals; and the scanty harvests are confined or exported for the
benefit of a monopoly. A second and more artificial cause of the
growth of a metropolis is the residence of a monarch, the expense
of a luxurious Court, and the tributes of dependent provinces.
Those provinces and tributes had been lost in the fall of the
Empire; and if some streams of the silver of Peru and the gold
of Brazil have been attracted by the Vatican, the revenues of the
cardinals, the fees of office, the oblations of pilgrims and clients,
and the remnant of ecclesiastical taxes afford a poor and pre-
carious supply, which maintains, however, the idleness of the
Court and city. The population of Rome, far below the measure
of the great capitals of Europfc, does not exceed one hundred and
seventy thousand inhabitants; and within the spacious enclosure
of the walls, the largest portion of the seven hills is overspread
with vineyards and ruins. The beauty and splendour of the
modern city may be ascribed to the abuses of the Government,
to the influence of superstition. Each reign (the exceptions are
rare) has been marked by the rapid elevation of a new family,
enriched by the childless pontiff, at the expense of the Church
and country. The palaces of these fortunate nephews are the
most costly monuments of elegance and servitude; the perfect
arts of architecture, painting and sculpture, have been prostituted
in their service and their galleries and gardens are decorated
with the most precious works of antiquity, which taste or vanity
has prompted them to collect The ecclesiastical revenues were
more decently employed by the Popes themselves in the pomp
of the Catholic worship; but it is superfluous to enumerate their